A vinegar valentine aimed at printers.

Printer

Lead-colored claws, tobacco-stained jaws,
   Wretched Typo, you cram up your stick,
Drunk today to your sorrow, half sober tomorrow,
   And then swear you're a regular "brick."
Your foreman condemns how you count up your "ems,"
   How you "sub" it at half-price he likes,
But the editor only, at his desk groaning lonely,
   Damns you and your interminable "strikes."

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An insulting "vinegar valentine" for schoolteachers. For additional examples, see my Vinegar Valentines set.

Originally posted on Ipernity: You Teach Each Little Elf More Than You Know Yourself.

Schoolmistress

You teach each little elf
More than you know yourself;
And talk like a petticoat college;
To spank the little boys
Is the greatest of your joys;
'Tis thus you preside at the seat of knowledge.

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It's all very fine to wine and dine
  A pretty dear sweet little miss
It looks very swell, but will you tell
  How it's done on a salary llike this ($10 per).

This vinegar valentine has been personalized with the initials "F.F." for the man, "J.V." for the woman, and "The Biltmore" hotel as the setting for the wining and dining. The early twentieth-century meaning of "lobster" was similar to today's "sugar daddy."

For a similar valentine, see Ye Gilded Boob.

Tags:   ephemera greeting cards greetings cards vinegar valentines valentines paper printed Valentine's Day Saint Valentine's Day February 14 holidays women men lobsters sugar daddies oh you lobster oh you kid catchphrases word play salaries wines alcoholic beverages ice buckets buckets wine buckets wine dine wining dining toasts glasses tables chairs Biltmore hotels poems insults illustrations caricatures parodies humor humorous funny red blue green yellow antique old vintage typefaces type typography fonts addedtoip

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"Ye Gilded Boob. / You think that you are: just it, / With your monocle [kid gloves] and ten-dollar hat."

A vinegar valentine that pokes fun at pretentious fools. The reference to a "ten-dollar hat" may come from the saying, "He wears a ten-dollar hat on a five-cent head," suggesting that an expensive hat can't make up for a lack of intelligence.

For a similar valentine, see Oh! You Lobster.

Originally posted on Ipernity: Ye Gilded Boob.

Tags:   ephemera greeting cards greetings cards vinegar valentines valentines paper printed Valentine's Day Saint Valentine's Day February 14 holidays men clothing clothes suits ties neckties hats ten-dollar hats five-cent heads nickel heads heads monocles eyeglasses glasses spectacles canes Ye Gilded Boob gilded boobs boobs dolts dumbbells fools foolish stupid gilded gilding disguised exaggerated pretentious word play walking stepping insults rhymes poetry poems illustrations caricatures parodies humor humorous funny blue green red antique old vintage typefaces type typography fonts

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"Don't be a dunce. Try to get a little useful information about things in general."

Book title: "Things You Should Know."

An example of a vinegar valentine.

Tags:   ephemera greeting cards greetings cards vinegar valentines valentines paper printed Valentine's Day Saint Valentine's Day February 14 holidays men students dunces dunce caps hats information knowledge books reading readers insults illustrations caricatures parodies humor humorous funny circles antique old vintage Howard Charles J. Howard Charles Howard artists artist-signed

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